Early 1980s Dodge D50/Mighty Max - thoughts?

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OceanRuns

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Later this evening I may be going to check out an early 1980s Dodge D50 (Mitsubishi Mighty Max). It is an automatic, and has that 2.6 4G54 astron engine (carb'd). Miles on the vehicle are in the 150k range. Seller is smogging it.

I have read all sorts of negative and positive things about this engine. Some folks have high miles on theirs, some claim headgaskets or head crack easily, and all sorts of other doom and gloom. What's the real truth on reliability?

Any thoughts you have on the motor will be appreciated. Any of you have/had a truck with this motor? Thought on the truck in general? With an auto? (I know that it will be slow by modern standards, that's ok.) I am curious what gas mileage might be.

Thanks
 
I used to work with a guy who had two D50's, i won't bother typing what he thought of them, both had head/headgasket problems along with tons of little things. Maybe if the guy is giving it away?? You would be much better off with a ranger or S10/S15
 
The Mikuni carb is a nightmare, and the timing chain is about 3 miles long and has a ton of nylon guides that wear out as they turn over 100k. A handful of them run forever.
 
I always heard they were pretty good, and a neighbor had one, back then. So maybe they were pretty good, back then.

Fast forward 30 years... why do you want to mess with it? Is it free, or close?
 
Originally Posted By: OceanRuns
Later this evening I may be going to check out an early 1980s Dodge D50 (Mitsubishi Mighty Max). It is an automatic, and has that 2.6 4G54 astron engine (carb'd). Miles on the vehicle are in the 150k range. Seller is smogging it.

I have read all sorts of negative and positive things about this engine. Some folks have high miles on theirs, some claim headgaskets or head crack easily, and all sorts of other doom and gloom. What's the real truth on reliability?

Any thoughts you have on the motor will be appreciated. Any of you have/had a truck with this motor? Thought on the truck in general? With an auto? (I know that it will be slow by modern standards, that's ok.) I am curious what gas mileage might be.

Thanks


I had a 1988 Ram 50 w/ the 2.6L 4cyl and 5spd. It was a 4WD Sport model with the factory roll bar, off road lights, and tubular rear bumper. Was my personal 1st ever new vehicle. I actually really liked it. Was a good little truck. I did have a head gasket let go but it was fixed under warranty. Only mechanical problem I had with it in the 4 years I had it. The roll bar and rear bumper had rust issues and both were replaced a couple times on my truck. Mechanically though other than the HG issue it was good. Oil changes, air filter changes, a set of tires, and spark plugs were all I did to it.
 
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Originally Posted By: datech
I always heard they were pretty good, and a neighbor had one, back then. So maybe they were pretty good, back then.

Fast forward 30 years... why do you want to mess with it? Is it free, or close?


It's close. I don't know the price, friend of a friend. I'll likely go look just to see.
 
I went to school with a guy who had one (For some reason I think it was a Plymouth Arrow - not the car) it was fairly new at the time and he had had a lot of trouble with the carburetor (usually manifested by dismal fuel mileage and leaking). The carb was replaced several times, IIRC (and it was a long time ago) he ended up converting it to a Weber which solved his issues until I lost touch with him.

Anyway, it had a nightmare of vacuum hoses going to the carb which I'm guessing would require wholesale replacement at this point in time...

If it is in good shape though, and cheap....

EDIT: Yep it was an ARROW... looked just like this right down to the camper (but it was not in this kind of shape...)

CC-149-020-800.jpg
 
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Originally Posted By: DuckRyder
I went to school with a guy who had one (For some reason I think it was a Plymouth Arrow - not the car) it was fairly new at the time and he had had a lot of trouble with the carburetor (usually manifested by dismal fuel mileage and leaking). The carb was replaced several times, IIRC (and it was a long time ago) he ended up converting it to a Weber which solved his issues until I lost touch with him.

Anyway, it had a nightmare of vacuum hoses going to the carb which I'm guessing would require wholesale replacement at this point in time...

If it is in good shape though, and cheap....


That doesn't sound like the Ram 50 truck like I had at all. The engine was one of the easiest to work on and see there was. Very little on it. No spaghetti of hoses and such.
 
Looks awesome. I like the stripes.

Originally Posted By: DuckRyder
I went to school with a guy who had one (For some reason I think it was a Plymouth Arrow - not the car) it was fairly new at the time and he had had a lot of trouble with the carburetor (usually manifested by dismal fuel mileage and leaking). The carb was replaced several times, IIRC (and it was a long time ago) he ended up converting it to a Weber which solved his issues until I lost touch with him.

Anyway, it had a nightmare of vacuum hoses going to the carb which I'm guessing would require wholesale replacement at this point in time...

If it is in good shape though, and cheap....

EDIT: Yep it was an ARROW... looked just like this right down to the camper (but it was not in this kind of shape...)

CC-149-020-800.jpg
 
If this thing has survived thirty years and 150K and remains in good running condition, I wouldn't be too worried about what might break.
It's either already broken and been fixed or it isn't going to break.
If the thing looks decent overall and runs and drives right, then why not, especially if the seller gets it tested?
It should be cheap unless the owner thinks he has some kind of rare classic on his hands, in which case you can walk.
 
My dad bought me an 86 D50 with the 2.6. It was the worst car I have ever had. It was in the shop for warranty work during the warranty more than I had it. Once out of warranty it became my problem. I know it had at least 5 transmissions, the body mounts under my feet broke and you could see the ground, Leaked oil from everything,constant carb problems. The mount that held the front differential up broke and dropped the diff out onto the street but it was still connected to the wheels by the axles.It needed a valve job @35k due to 2 burned exhaust valves. Once the head was fixed the rings went. It used huge amounts of oil which plugged up both cats so they got rodded out. It got so bad that I had to pour oil down the carb to get the compression up so it would start.

Its crankshaft broke in 2 @44K which killed the engine. I bought a nice running 88 engine and put that in it and gave it to my dad to drive. A few months later he double gasketed an oil filter and burned that engine up. Truck went to the scrapper after that.

There's more that went wrong such as wheel bearings, hydraulic lifters, body panels falling off etc. This truck was JUNK! My Toyota kept running and running though.
 
Friend had one from the 80s in the 90s. Burned a quart of oil every 200 miles from new. Fouled plugs on occasion.

They put that 2.6 motor in Mazda 4x4s, an answer to a question nobody asked.

But dang those trucks are cute: all of them! Datsun, Mazda, Isuzu/Luv, Toyota, Mitsubishi. S10 and Ranger were homely in comparison but both have stuck around better at least in the rust belt.
 
See quite a few Mazda's Toyota's Nissan's around but NEVER any Dodge D50's any more.

As a long term Toyota with 22R owner, that's where my money would go.
 
Originally Posted By: OceanRuns
Later this evening I may be going to check out an early 1980s Dodge D50 (Mitsubishi Mighty Max). It is an automatic, and has that 2.6 4G54 astron engine (carb'd). Miles on the vehicle are in the 150k range. Seller is smogging it.

I have read all sorts of negative and positive things about this engine. Some folks have high miles on theirs, some claim headgaskets or head crack easily, and all sorts of other doom and gloom. What's the real truth on reliability?

Any thoughts you have on the motor will be appreciated. Any of you have/had a truck with this motor? Thought on the truck in general? With an auto? (I know that it will be slow by modern standards, that's ok.) I am curious what gas mileage might be.

Thanks


I've read the comments up to now, in my sig. the '84 had a 2.6L, the carb. is not that bad, the choke is the problem, after I took it off it worked great for 120K miles until the ethanol came along, I switched to Weber; timing chain changed once when it had 220K. miles, no indication but I couldn't wait any longer, I didn't want it to jump on me, it wasn't going to then; the head had some water jacket pitting for using the wrong antifreeze and not changing it regularly, Do you blame the engine or the operator?, a couple of water pumps I think, plugs and wires and an ignition module, all this in a little over 330K miles, it was burning 1 qt./2300 miles compression last time checked was 173PSI lower 176PSI highest. The heads with problems are the ones with "jet valves" you can replace them with an eliminator kit but it is mostly if you overheat the engine, run it lean or too low octane fuel; these are the same heads used in the turbocharged Mitsubishi Starion, if they were so bad they would have blown at the second or third full boost. My take is bad mechanics and poor service are probably responsible for 95% of the issues. IMHO
 
Got to admit I actually keep an eye out for a Ram 50 like I had. If I ever came across one that was in 1/2 decent shape and the price was right I would be very tempted.
 
Is this the same Mitsubishi 2.6 that was in the early Chrysler minivans? The one that smoked so bad at idle?

Those vans used to be everywhere, and for years it was a regular sight to be stopped at a red light and look around to see 3 or 4 of the things idling away, surrounding themselves and everyone else with blue smoke. Haven't seen one in years now, so maybe they've all gone to the great crusher in the sky.
 
I thought it was the Mitsu 3.0 v6 that smoked so much in the early voya-vans. Ours did.

Our older 4cyl caravans never had oil burning issues, but I don't remember if they had the 2.2 or the 2.6. I remember ours were exceptionally reliable, and I believe they had timing belts.
 
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